


I Knew Him

by Namesake



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Implied BuckyNat, Implied Relationships, One Shot, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 13:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5968771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namesake/pseuds/Namesake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Clint have a badly needed discussion about the secrets she’s been keeping from Steve. Like, for example, how she has a slightly more complicated history with his amnesiac, AWOL best friend than she ever let on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Knew Him

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little one-shot I wrote a while back but only recently got around to finishing off. With a little bit of implied BuckyNat and a little implied Clintasha I hope you'll enjoy!

I KNEW HIM

 

Clint leaned back into his side of the sofa with a groan. “What do you want me to tell you, Tash? I’m not your shrink.”

They were in Clint’s apartment and one of the very many floors of the newly refurbished Avengers Tower. It had become a custom of sorts for Natasha to come knocking on Clint’s door after an exceptionally gruelling mission. Most of the time, she wouldn’t even speak, she’d just shoulder past him, stalk into the bathroom and that would be that for at least forty-five minutes. Natasha seemed to take comfort in the familiarity of Clint’s shower, the smell of his colognes and shampoos. He didn’t mind, Hell, he understood why she did it. Sometimes it gets easy to lose yourself in a mission, but coming back from that? That’s the hard part. Showering in Clint’s apartment was a grounding factor for Nat. She needed the familiarity in fear of losing the person she’d worked so hard to become.

Natasha was sat cross-legged and bare foot on the other half of the sofa. Her hair was damp and her natural curls were already making themselves known, cradling her chin and teasing the surface of her shoulders. She was wearing a black tank-top and sweats. Comfortable clothes that were just as comfortable to kick someone’s teeth in. Clint respected that. Still, the look on Nat’s face, the way her eyes were unusually wide, _that_ was something to worry about. So was this whole damn conversation.

“No,” Natasha said evenly, her expression just about open enough to border on vulnerability. “But I trust you, more than anyone in this tower.”

Clint snorted. “I’d hope so.”

Natasha’s expression narrowed. Her lips quirked slyly. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“Fine,” Clint said. “If you want my opinion so badly and, y’know, I’m not even sure that you _do_ , then I’d tell him.”

A frown creased Natasha’s brow, proving that she wasn’t impressed and she was more than willing to show it. Nat had always been blunt with Clint; the poker face she presented when most people voiced their thoughts just wasn’t good enough for him. Clint counted her response both a blessing and a curse.  

“You think it’d be that easy?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

“I lied to him.”

“You lie to everyone,” Clint pointed out.

“Not you.” Natasha smiled. “Usually.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “There you go lying again.”

Natasha laughed, a much higher pitch than the one she reserved for the Avengers, lower than the one she used on her victims. This was a laugh that told Clint that Natasha was completely at ease, not looking over her shoulder for a threat, not secretly observing, lying in wait for a fight to erupt. Clint took a moment to savour that laugh; since SHIELD went to shit, he got to see her so rarely that he’d nearly forgotten what it sounded like.

Natasha caught herself, her smile sobering. This time, her expression darkened. “It’s different now,” she said heavily. “Things got complicated, _I_ got complicated and,” she shrugged, her shoulders stiffening, “he trusted me.”

That was a blow in itself.

Clint knew it was stupid, this was _Captain America_ they were talking about for Christ sake, of course he trusted Natasha; the guy trusted people a lot, maybe more than he should have in a world that he was practically just thawed into. But of course, Steve didn’t _know_ that, what kind of lasting effect saying something like that would have on Natasha – on _anyone_ like her for that matter. When you spend your life trained to kill, to complete missions behind a handful of fake identities and facades, when your only objective above following orders is _don’t die,_ well, trust becomes something unobtainable.

And Natasha – _God,_ she’d spent so much of her time at SHIELD watching her own back, fearing an inevitable betrayal because she was the Black Widow, she couldn’t be trusted, that’s what they’d all thought even if they’d never said it out loud. Nat had been able to read them all, she was _that good._

And she hated it.

Clint knew that, even if she never voiced it, even if she took her missions with a stone hard expression or a coy smile, he could read her. She wanted people to trust her. She’d saved the goddamn world she fucking _deserved_ it. But people, it seemed, never really forgot the past. And neither could Natasha. It had taken years for her to believe Clint when he’d told her he trusted her, after all. And now, years later, he was still the only one she believed.

And now Natasha was looking at him with that furrowed brow, that rare look of _does not compute_ confusion and, with it, laced in her eyes, guilt. Guilt because Steve trusted her. Guilt because he should have known better, should have _expected_ her to lie. Guilt because she thought she could have done better too, though she’d never say that last one out loud, even if there was a gun pressed to her head. She was just that stubborn.

“Tasha…” Clint said. His mouth was dry. What could he say to make her feel better? Worthy? It felt like he was sitting with her all those years ago, back in his shitty apartment trying for the life of him to get her to see herself as anything other than a weapon. He swallowed. “Steve’s a big boy, I think he can figure you out for himself. He trusted you because you gave him a reason to, because you had his back.”

Natasha eyed him warily. “But-”

“No,” Clint said, raising his hands. “Not buts, no b-words, just hear me out. Steve chose to trust you, that was his call, just like it was my call to bring you in alive. He knows who you are, Tasha, he’s worked with you, seen more sides of you than most people ever could. And he’s seen the good in you.” Clint lowered his hands. “You’re a hero, Tash, an _Avenger,_ you tell Steve the truth now, he’s not gonna hold the past against you. God knows how many people he’d hate if he did that with everyone.”

Natasha seemed to process his words, her eyes widening marginally as they finally sank in. Suddenly tight-lipped, she nodded. “I don’t-” She stopped, composing herself. “Clint, I _knew him._ ”

Clint knew who she was talking about. It was what this whole conversation was about after all. God knows what had triggered Natasha finally telling him about it – Clint knew better than to pry about that stuff – but whatever the reason, this secret she’d been keeping had been eating at her ever since the fall of SHIELD, but as was usual with Nat, she never let it show, never let her private thoughts become the burden for anyone else. She was good at it, but Clint had spent enough time with her to know when she was hiding something. Especially this big.

“That Winter Soldier guy.” Clint didn’t phrase it like a question.

Natasha didn’t even look surprised. She only nodded, pursing her lips. “A lot of my time in the Red Room isn’t that clear, it comes and goes, but…” Natasha swallowed. She shrugged. “I thought it’d be simple. It wasn’t compromising, I could deal with it, but when Steve said he knew the guy?” Natasha laughed humourlessly. “I was bleeding out at the time, I barely reacted, and after that I just didn’t want to make it complicated.”

“So you never told him,” Clint finished for her, shaking his head. “Like I said, Tash, he won’t hold it against you.”

“The guy was his best friend,” Natasha pointed out as though it was the simplest thing in the world. “And now he’s gone AWOL. I got the file for Steve, pulled a few strings, but that was it. I didn’t _do_ anything.”

“Why not start now?”

Natasha shook her head. “Because I’m not an idiot, Clint. I’ve been in the Winter Soldier’s place and at a time when I wasn’t me… when he wasn’t _him_ , we knew each other.” Natasha’s gaze slowly rose back onto Clint, her expression unreadable. “Sometimes you need time to figure things out for yourself.”

Clint nodded slowly. “I get it, Tash, I do, but Steve’s not gonna give up just because this guy needs room to breathe.”

“And he shouldn’t.” A dangerous smile spread across Natasha’s lips. “Steve won’t find him until he’s ready. People like him, like us, we know how to cover our tracks.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Clint asked. “I get you don’t want to break Steve’s trust, but if you tell him the truth now-”

“He’ll expect me to help him,” Natasha interrupted. “If he figures out just how much I know about the Winter Soldier, he’ll want me to find him before he’s ready.” Natasha picked at a strand of her damp hair, uselessly twirling it around her finger. “Right now, Hydra’s in shambles, he’s not got much to run from, but that’ll change. Other intelligences will want to use him, just like they wanted me. Maybe they’ve already started. All I know is he’ll figure out sooner or later that he needs allies.” Natasha let go of her hair. “Who better to start with than the guy who broke him from Hydra’s control?”

Clint laughed. “Right, the guy who also works for the organisation that tried to kill him.”

Natasha shrugged. “Details.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Should we even be talking about this? With the way Stark decks his walls with cameras I’m pretty sure that little AI of his-”

Natasha smiled, bowing her head mischievously. “I wouldn’t worry; Stark doesn’t use cameras on this floor ever since I hacked them to display his bathroom on the big screen downstairs.”

“Wait, that was _you?_ ”

Natasha shuffled her back against the sofa. “Who else did you think it was?”

Clint shrugged. “I dunno, I just assumed it was Banner getting payback.” Clint shook his head. “I should have known it was you, there’s always an elegance in your editing.” He pointed to her off-handedly. “The super small censor box was a nice touch.”

“I take pride in my work.” Natasha smiled before glancing back towards Clint, her expression sincere. “Thanks for this.”

Clint cracked a smile, sliding further back so that his face was directed at the ceiling. “I don’t know what I really did, ‘sides from telling you what you already knew.”

“Still,” Natasha said, and Clint knew it was hard for her, being honest, opening up in any way, but she had gotten better at it. Especially with him. “I think I needed this, so thanks.”

Clint kept staring at the ceiling. He fiddled uselessly with his hands. “Will you tell him then?”

There was a pause. Clint could practically hear the cogs in Natasha’s brain mashing together. Finally, she shifted, shrugging thoughtfully. “I think he needs to know.” She sighed. “It’s not fair on him if I don’t. This whole search is eating him alive.”

_And you,_ Clint thought privately to himself. He didn’t say it out loud, he didn’t want to test whether he’d survive a thirty story fall after getting thrown from his window. Still, he could see it in Natasha’s eyes; every time she was in the same room as Steve she’d stiffen up. It wasn’t obvious, Natasha could look calmly into the eyes of the Grim Reaper itself, but Clint could tell. She had her ticks, things he could pick up on and he knew when she was uncomfortable. Whatever went down between her and the Winter Soldier… she remembered more than she’d ever let on. Clint knew the Red Room had been her own personal Hell, but there had also been times – mostly when she was drunk – that she’d let slip a few details that made him think she had a handful of memories that weren’t as painful. That there were times when she might have been happy. Or at least, as happy as you could be for a brainwashed Russian assassin.

Clint watched Natasha as she stared blankly at the ground. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking anymore, but he could guess.

“I’ll tell him,” Natasha said, her eyes lighting up. “He deserves this. I… I want him to trust me.”

Clint lifted himself from his spot, scooting over just enough that he could bump Natasha’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly. “He will. He does.”

Natasha blinked before righting herself. She nudged Clint back, an action that was so natural to her that she didn’t even falter as she moved to her feet. She padded over to his kitchen, glancing over her shoulder. “I’m stealing one of your beers by the way.”

“It’s not really stealing if you announce it,” Clint called, falling backwards with all the grace of an exhausted, oversized puppy. “Some master class assassin _you_ are.” He swung one arm over his face, lifting the other one instinctively to catch the can that was lobbed at his head. “Thanks,” he said, but Nat was already at his front door. He heard it swing open before closing behind her.

Clint stayed where he was, only cracking open his beer when he heard the soft _ding_ of the elevator outside. “Sleep well, Nat,” he whispered.

 


End file.
